Hi, my RN104 auto powered up the other day while not being plugged into the ethernet switch. It's happened a few times previously but it was plugged into a Netgear 16 port unmanaged gigabit switch when it happened before, I'd previously assumed that something had sent a WOL magic packet to the device causing it to turn on. Now that it's randomly powered up while not plugged into anything other than power I'm wondering why. It's an RN104 with firmware 6.10.3Contains 4 x WDC WD4001FFSX-68JNUNO Does anyone know what might be the cause of this please? Thanks.

Thje default condition after a power interruption is on. Is the NAS on an UPS? If not, you likely had a short power fluctuation that caused it. If it is on an UPS, you may have an issue with it. Or, the power brick may be having a problem (though that is unlikely with the NAS unpowered). There is one other possibility, and it's not a good thing. Internally, the NAS creates the necessary voltages from the input 12V. One of them is called +5VSB. That is the StandBy voltage, and remains on even when the NAS is off. That's because it powers the on/off circuit and the LAN port (so WoL works). If that voltage is failing, then this can also happen. It is not a repairable condition.

RN104-Gumboe wrote:Thanks, it's not plugged into a UPS. And most of the time it's not even switched on. It probably gets switched on about a dozen times a year. The power brick and the ethernet cable are always plugged in although for the last couple of months the switch end of the ethernet cable has been left unplugged. Power blips, hmm, not sure. We've got some picky kit here that I would expect to also show signs of an outage no matter how brief and I've not had a power blip here since before I got the RN104. I can understand not having a UPS with so little use. But it does make a power droop #1 on my list of suspects. If there is a nearby UPS, you might want to plug it in there, even if the NAS is not set up to monitor it. If the problem goes away, you've found the culpret. Are there any logs which I could find by SSHing onto the unit which would help to track down what this might be definitively?Unfortunately not. The NAS has no idea of what awakened it. Not sure about the power issue you mentioned so I'd better make sure I've got good backups. Just in case.That's always a good idea, anyway. If you start having problems turning the unit on or off or with the Ethernet connection, then those are other signs of this issue. If the unit did die, what do you think would be my chances of getting the data off the drives either with or without a replacement RN104 from ebay? The drives aren't reporting any issues.Very high likelyhood of recovery by just moving the drives to a new ReadyNAS. But not high enough to risk important data by not having a backup unless the NAS already is just a backup (as opposed to sole archival)). The +5VSB isn't used for anything that's likely to take down your volume. If it did go poof during a file transfer, the currently transferring file would likely be corrupted, but that's aboiut it. If it was the whole power brick, then the volumne could be corrupted. But that's not high on my list of suispects.

The suggestion StephenB is making is to prevent it from powering up on it's own. Even when the NAS is "off", there is an internal standby voltage that is always on whenever the external power is applied, as it powers the power-on circuit and WoL. By putting a switched power strip in, you remove the power from that circuit as well as the rest of the NAS. In addition to stopping the annoyance of the NAS turning itself on, that could affect the life of your NAS. Issues with the standby voltage regulation (from the 12V that comes from the power brick) or the power on circuit could be your issue. But the rub is that without knowing the root cause, it could be just as likely that adding power cycles to those circuits would reduce their lifespan as much or more than reducing power-on time would increase it. Is WoL enabled on the NAS? Since you apparently don't use it, disabling that could help.

Sandshark wrote: The suggestion StephenB is making is to prevent it from powering up on it's own. Correct. Using a switched power strip (or even just unplugging it) ensures that it can't power up when you don't want it to. The other idea would just make sure it shuts down reasonably promptly (in case you don't notice that it's on). I agree with Sandshark that w/o knowing the root cause it's hard to say how this would effect the NAS life. RN104-Gumboe wrote: Reply was that the RN104 doesn't record how it's been powered on. I'm wondering if there's anything like an auth.log or syslog that I could take a look at but it doesn't look like it. The logs might be able to tell you why the NAS powers down. But not why it powers up. There's nothing in the system logs that can tell you that.

FWIW, my RN102 does this every now and then too. I don't know why.

RN104 automatically powering on | NETGEAR Communities

18 Replies

Replies have been turned off for this discussion

StephenB
Guru - Experienced User
May 22, 2020
FWIW, my RN102 does this every now and then too. I don't know why.
- RN104-Gumboe
  Aspirant
  May 22, 2020
  It's certainly odd, I've checked the Power on Time and Wake on LAN settings and neither are ticked.
  
  It would be good to know if there's a log I can get to which might show what triggered the power on. I don't have anything else in the house that does this, powers on when not turned on, only my Netgear ReadyNAS. I even wondered if it somehow had some virus/malware on it but that's just speculation.
  - Sandshark
    Sensei
    May 22, 2020
    Thje default condition after a power interruption is on. Is the NAS on an UPS? If not, you likely had a short power fluctuation that caused it. If it is on an UPS, you may have an issue with it. Or, the power brick may be having a problem (though that is unlikely with the NAS unpowered).
    
    There is one other possibility, and it's not a good thing. Internally, the NAS creates the necessary voltages from the input 12V. One of them is called +5VSB. That is the StandBy voltage, and remains on even when the NAS is off. That's because it powers the on/off circuit and the LAN port (so WoL works). If that voltage is failing, then this can also happen. It is not a repairable condition.

Forum Discussion

RN104 automatically powering on

18 Replies

Related Content

ReadyNAS RN104 power died - moving data?

RN104 Automatic login credentials possible?

RN104 power supply

ReadyNAS RN104 Power Timer not switching off

RN104 - Stuck "Booting..." after automatic 6.4.0 upgrade.

NETGEAR Academy

ProSupport for Business